Some good news from the FCC! This week it adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) and Notice of Inquiry (NOI) seeking industry comments on how best to move toward complete nationwide number portability (NNP) while at the same time, promoting competition between all service providers and encouraging the efficient routing of calls throughout the network. Industry comments are due 30 days after this item (Docket 17-244) appears in the Federal Register.

The FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on September 28, 2017 in Docket 17-192 proposing changes to its rules for certain toll-free number assignments. Industry comments are due on November 13, 2017.

The NPRM is significant because for the first time since toll-free numbers were introduced in 1967 the Commission would use a competitive auction to assign approximately 17,000 sought after numbers in the new 833 code.